Your Top Three Issues for 2022 (From This List)

[Ben]

My Congressman sends his constituents surveys to fill out all the time. The one today is asking for my top three important issues for 2022 from this list:

Election integrity
 End vaccine mandates
 Address supply chain issues
 Balance the budget
 Defend the 2nd Amendment
 Improve foreign relations
 Secure the border
 Restore U.S. energy independence
 Reform education
 Defend family values
 Other (please specify)

I actually had to waffle around to pick three. I could easily swap a couple. I chose RTKBA just because RTKBA. The other two were election integrity and restoring our energy independence. Both of those were probably biased choices based on current events and Brandon. Otherwise I might have swapped those for balancing the budget and securing the border as longer term issues if we didn't have big elections coming up this year and if 46 hadn't destroyed our energy independence in a matter of weeks.

What would your three be from the above list?

EDIT: I decided to not be lazy and I turned this into a poll.

[Fly320s]

1. RKBA
2. End vaccine mandates
3. Election integrity... in the form of voter ID.

[RocketMan]

Like you, it would be hard for me to choose three items from the list as all are quite important.  RKBA as the default number one.  I think election integrity would have to be number two.  Without secure elections, we lose the republic.  Energy independence as number three as regaining it would ease inflationary pressures somewhat.
Again though, hard to choose as each item is important.

[K Frame]

RTKBA

Secure the border

Energy independence

[Perd Hapley]

1, 2, and 9

#9 is education - Ben, would you mind numbering the options, for ease of reference?

[230RN]

I didn't choose Defending the Second Amendment since I think that's dependent on my number one concern:  election integrity. Part of election integrity would be establishing an equitable balance of power between voter-dense areas versus the boonies.

(The way I feel right now, "equitable" would mean no power for the cities.  )

I started an argument with myself about choosing the others.  Me won, but just by a TKO over myself.

Terry, 230RN

[Ben]

1, 2, and 9

#9 is education - Ben, would you mind numbering the options, for ease of reference?

Done.

[Brad Johnson]

First two are no-brainers... RKBA and election integrity. Third choice would be dependent on context (short term, long term, societal, economic, etc.). In the immediate I think the supply chain issues are the biggie.

Brad

[HankB]

1, 5, and 11. (Why isn't defending the 2nd Amendment #2?)

Election integrity and the 2nd are on there, but for the third I'd like to see "Hold China's Communist Party accountable for Covid" but my hopes for that are fading - I guess there's too much Chinese money flowing to western government officials and their contributors to expect that to happen. (Wonder how many Hunter Biden paintings the CCP has purchased so far . . . )

[Pb]

End elective human abortion
Gun rights
Balanced budged   

[MechAg94]

I voted on 1, 2, &5, but #4 Balance Budget is pretty big also.  That assumes spending is under control which would take a pretty big change in policy in D.C.

[Hawkmoon]

2A

Election Integrity

Secure the border

But it was tough. They are all real, significant issues, and once I got beyond the 2A and election integrity, deciding which one of the other eight was the most important was difficult.

[sumpnz]

Election integrity is really the only thing you need.  Get that and, mostly, the rest will resolve as a result.

[HeroHog]

Election integrity
Defend the 2nd Amendment
Secure the border

[230RN]

Election integrity is really the only thing you need.  Get that and, mostly, the rest will resolve as a result.

Agreed.  That's about the way I figured it.  See Reply #5.

[AZRedhawk44]

I've gotten to the point that RKBA isn't important.  We've already got the guns.  They really want to thumb their noses at us and declare them illegal, it's game on.

I'm far more worried about the next 2 generations.  And the way education has been going the last 20 years, Idiocracy will come to its prophesied state in 3-5 more generations.

[Ben]

I don't know if "glad about it" is the right phrase, but I'm glad to see that election integrity is rocking the vote here.

I see it as a term that encompasses a whole lot of problems right now. It's not just the important voter ID issue that Fly320s mentioned and ensuring that only citizens vote, and only once. It (for me) goes beyond shenanigans at the ballot box. "Election integrity" is also about twitter censoring a sitting president. About big tech and the MSM censoring and curating information to effectively change elections without ballot fraud, because they feed people "the (their) truth" and send anything else into a black hole.

I know I harp on it a lot, but big tech is one of the greatest evils of our time, and they are the biggest player in election fraud, manipulating results before ballots are even cast.

[JTHunter]

Choosing just three is simply frustrating as all are important to varying degrees.
I started off with #s 2, 3, and 8 (not necessarily in that order) but would put the rest in this order - #7, 9, 10, 1, 5, and 6.  I specifically omit #4 (balanced budget) as I don't believe either party has the inclination OR the desire to balance the budget.

[Nick1911]

I suppose I have a slightly different take on "election integrity" than Ben.

I do get and respect the point about how media influences opinion - a strategy that social media platforms seem to have perfected into an art form.  However, has it not always been the case the case that media is politically corrupt?  Yellow journalism has existed for a long time, I view social media as an extension of this.  I'm more dismayed that so many people lack the critical thinking skills to really pick apart and assess a point.

Devils advocate: Lack of critical thinking skills is not new either.  Does the government have a authority and responsibility to regulate social media platforms in such a way that they cannot choose to deliberately present a biased perspective to users?

I consider election integrity to be a matter of one vote per US citizen.  Cornerstone of democracy.  If you can't guarantee that within reasonable error, your democracy, and therefore country, is fundamentally compromised.

[230RN]

^ What he said.

Like.

[230RN]

^ Basically agree, except Big Tech has replaced Big Press, and I recall the gag about "Never argue with somebody who buys ink by the barrel."

Remember the Maine and the "splendid little war" that it started? Remember the term "yellow journalism?"

It's alive and well.

Except for the ink.

[Ben]

Devils advocate: Lack of critical thinking skills is not new either.  Does the government have a authority and responsibility to regulate social media platforms in such a way that they cannot choose to deliberately present a biased perspective to users?

Reverse Devil's advocate: Do social media platforms have the authority to not only present their biased views, but prevent other social media platforms (see Parler) from presenting alternate views?

Certainly prior to big tech, say 50 years ago, you had people sitting in front of the TV getting their news from three national over the air sources: ABC, NBC, and CBS, but then also getting local and regional news through their local TV/radio news and newspapers, which more often than not allowed for varying opinions. 

The latter is no longer as independent as it once was. The video has in the past been posted on APS showing "local" news stations across the country reporting the same verbatim political stories, which were handed to them by their masters in Chicago, NYC, LA, etc. When I look at my local news stations online, at least 50% of their stories are just cutting and pasting whatever the AP wrote.

[ConstitutionCowboy]

My specified "Other" is "All the Above."   

Woody

[HankB]

. . . The video has in the past been posted on APS showing "local" news stations across the country reporting the same verbatim political stories, which were handed to them by their masters in Chicago, NYC, LA, etc. When I look at my local news stations online, at least 50% of their stories are just cutting and pasting whatever the AP wrote.

Many - perhaps most - local stations no longer really do their own reporting because it might conflict with what the parent company's agenda is.

And if they WERE to sent out their own reporters, if they distort what the people they interviewed actually said, it's better than even money the interviewee will go on the Internet and denounce the reporter as a liar . . . and maybe he'll have video of his own to back it up.

Better to just parrot the approved narrative.

[Ron]

Bolded were my choices.

 Election integrity - For all its failings representative government is still the best form of govmnt.

 End vaccine mandates - If the truly elected President was in office now they wouldn't have happened.   
 
Address supply chain issues - Our control of global supply chains is limited. MAGA policies would potentially help     
 
Balance the budget - not with our fiat money system
 
Defend the 2nd Amendment - the only issue that has had positive momentum in the last decade.
 
Improve foreign relations - meh, clean our own mess up first.
 
Secure the border-  One of the main purposes of government, the current government is filled with traitors.
 
Restore U.S. energy independence-  Should be a no brainer, eliminate foreign actors political leverage based on energy dependence.
 
Reform education - eliminate the Dept of Education, encourage private and homeschooling.
 
Defend family values - I'd be happy with not attacking family values.